Subject: Review: Jurassic Park III (2001)

From: Robin Clifford <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 17:59:41 -0000

"Jurassic Park III"

Steven Spielberg has relinquished the directing reins of his successful
dino franchise and gives Joe Johnston ("Jumanji") a chance to play with the
big boys in "Jurassic Park III."

A friend described "JP3," for me, without seeing it: Adventurers (with Dr.
Grant (Sam Neill) in tow) arrive clandestinely on Monster Island - it's
called Isla Sorna, here. They meet a big, mean dinosaur - introducing the
new kid, the Spinosaurus - have some of their number eaten, then run away.
They see big, cuddly dinos, are chased again by another meanie, and run
away. They make their way to "the compound," where more mean dinos try to
eat them. Get chased, run away, get chased, run away, get chased, run away.
My friend was dead on describing this cookie cutter effort from start to
finish. Now, that's scarier than the monsters.

The neat thing about the first "Jurassic Park" flick was the fresh,
never-before-seen prehistoric world created by Michael Crichton and put up
on the big screen by Spielberg. It was exciting to see T-Rex for the first
time or chew your nails as the raptors hunted down the youngsters. Sure
there was a lot of hokum with the kids being the heroes, saving the adults
from being eaten, but, we could get over the Spielbergian clichés and have
a good time. This brave new cinema world was visited again, sadly, with the
mishmash that was "Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World." A cross between the
original, "The Road Warrior" and "Godzilla," the second outing just
rehashed the new technology, poked some fun at itself and monster movies,
but was pretty routine, and sometimes boring, with its "more is better"
attitude.

This third (and undoubtedly not the last if this makes money) in the series
uses formula, rather than originality, to convey its conventional
man-against-monster yarn. The newness has worn off the franchise and it is
now more of the same. What caused us to wow and wonder in 1993 has become
commonplace in 2001. The F/X developed nearly a decade ago have been
improved and made even more seamless, but there is not the quantum leap
that Spielberg and company made with the debut of the original "Jurassic
Park."

The story - the first of the franchise not adapted from a Michael Crichton
book - doesn't try to invent anything new as it tells its tale of man
against nature, albeit a nature artificially designed by man. The team of
writers - Peter Buchman, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor - provides an
action/adventure yarn that is exactly as my friend described it to me.
There are no surprises and few logical ties to the original. For example,
in "JP1" there were no Spinosaurases or flying Pteranodons, but, a few
years later, they have miraculously evolved from nothing. A T-Rex is going
to make little T-Rexes, not Spinos. It is insulting to the fans of the
franchise to be talked down to by the filmmakers. Don't they realize that
fans notice these details? Some of us do have an attention span longer than
15 minutes, we should tell them.

I hope Sam Neill gets a good paycheck for this outing. The actor goes
through the motions as Dr. Alan Grant and is left to mouth such lines as
"Nobody move!" And that is about it for this veteran thesp. William H. Macy
and Tea Leoni, as the divorced couple looking for their lost child on
Monster Island (that's the basis for the "GP3" story), are adequate.
Handsome Alessandro Nivola is conflicted (or constipated, it's hard to
tell) as Dr.G's assistant. There is, of course, a kid - Trevor Morgan - as
the focus of the search and, yes, he's smarter than the adults. The rest of
the cast members, including Michael Jeter, are simply items on the dino
lunch menu. Laura Dern reprises her role as Dr. Ellie Sattler and, with
about 10 seconds of screen time, saves the day, long-distance.

Technically, as one would expect in a film with Steven Spielberg as an
executive producer, this is a high-tech wonder of CGI and animatronics. The
glitter has worn off since T-Rex first thumped his foot down, but the
craftsmanship given to putting life into these prehistoric creatures should
be lauded. The mechanical F/X, like a Spino attack on the adventurers
trapped inside the wrecked fuselage of their plane, are first rate.
Production design, by Ed Verreaux, does a fine job creating the lush jungle
and dangerous compound sets for the monsters to play in.

Maybe it's time for the "Jurassic Park" park franchise to join hands with
Toho and Godzilla. I can picture it now. The dinosaurs have taken over the
United States and its up to Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and the rest of the
boys from Japan, to save the world and kick some Jurassic butt. I'd go to
see it. In the meantime, I give "Jurassic Park III" a C+.

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X-RAMR-ID: 28879
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 236490
X-RT-TitleID: 1108705
X-RT-SourceID: 386
X-RT-AuthorID: 1488
X-RT-RatingText: C+